Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!udel!princeton!mccc!pjh
From: pjh@mccc.UUCP (Peter J. Holsberg)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: What's a good textbook?
Message-ID: <190@mccc.UUCP>
Date: 6 Feb 88 14:25:19 GMT
References: <523@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> <128@mccc.UUCP> <2023@pdn.UUCP> <140@mccc.UUCP> <1429@sugar.UUCP> <184@mccc.UUCP> <8802050815.AA01987@ucscb.UCSC.EDU>
Reply-To: pjh@mccc.UUCP (Peter J. Holsberg)
Organization: The College on the Other Side of US Route 1
Lines: 28

In article <8802050815.AA01987@ucscb.UCSC.EDU> lupin3%ucscb.UCSC.EDU@ucscc.UCSC.EDU writes:
|
|  How interesting... I'm taking "Introduction to C" this quarter (so I'm
|little precocious in reading this newsgroup...) and the textbook for the
|course is "C by Dissection", by Kelly and Pohl.  Even more interesting is
|that the teacher is Ira Pohl... he takes the subject quite slowly (well, it
|seems real slow to me anyways..) but surely.  However, I also taught myself
|some C over the summer, out of K&R...
|  What I would say is that "C by Dissection" would be good for a beginning
|user (someone new to computers, and Unix... the book is very Unix-specific),
|wheras K&R would be good for a hacker who didn't know C yet.  K&R talks to
|you on a very high level, kind of obtusely, and (while fun for hackers) is
|very scary for neophites...
|-- 

If you taught yourself C from reading K&R, what are you doing ina  beginners'
class???  Looking for that easy A, eh?  :-)

I agree completely with what you say.  None of my students are  (or were)
hackers, so C by Dissection is a better choice than K&R.



-- 
Peter Holsberg                  UUCP: {rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Technology Division             CompuServe: 70240,334
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